How the mighty have fallen?
- Thread starter nittanymoops
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Yep. And that doesn't even include Texas A&M, Florida, and LSU - who were right after that as others receiving votes. (which makes a round 10)
And this, the "quant" based (as opposed to "eye test"):
2024 College Football Power Index - ESPN
10 of the top 20 - as opposed to 4 from the Big Ten
Big Ten can hang with the SEC at the top (the ACC and Big Twelve are non-starters) - but the depth of quality is not comparable w the SEC.
A&M and Florida were both an impressive 8-5 last year. LSU was 9-4. Their OOC schedules were meh. LSU schedule included Nicholls?? WTF is Nicholls? And South Alabama. Their opening OOC game was to USC…and USC won.
2024 Florida State Football Schedule | FBSchedules.com
View the 2024 Florida State Football Schedule at FBSchedules.com. The FSU Seminoles football schedule includes opponents, date, time, and TV.
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2024 Texas A&M Football Schedule | FBSchedules.com
View the 2024 Texas A&M Football Schedule at FBSchedules.com. The Aggies football schedule includes opponents, date, time, and TV.
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2024 LSU Football Schedule | FBSchedules.com
View the 2024 LSU Football Schedule at FBSchedules.com. The Tigers football schedule includes opponents, date, time, and TV.
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The top of the Big could compete with anyone last season, but I'd agree with most that top to bottom the SEC was the deepest conference in the country. New season, new teams, we shall see how it plays out and with what PSU is paying they should definitely be in the mix.
But it’s not college football anymore…it’s minor league football…outside of a few “haves,” attendance is on the way down. It is likely to continue as in every other sport, who cares about the minor leagues when you can watch the major league (NFL).
The attachment to universities via the student athlete is evaporating as players hop from one school to another and sometimes back. They are now just hired guns with the university brand slapped on their back. This erosion of loyal fans will continue. The golden age of college football is over as nothing is forever…ask boxing and horse racing.
Penn State beat no one of significance last year. Will see if we can break through and beat a team with a pulse this year. Or better yet, a team with a pulse on the road. That has not been seen in these parts since 2008?
TL;DR Your inability to add even a tad of paragraphical punctuation explains a lot.
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Your link is broken. Let’s try this:
2024 ESPN Power Rankings
You miscounted; there are 5 Big Ten teams in the top 20 of those power rankings.
But that’s just one “quant” based ranking. Here’s another — Sports Reference Simple Rating System (SRS) — that has 7 SEC and 6 Big Ten in the top 20. And if you expand out to top 25, it’s 9 Big Ten, 8 SEC.
I’d say the SEC has generally been deeper in recent years but last year I’d say teams 4-12 or so were pretty close. And as others pointed out, the head to head results bear that out: the Big Ten went 5-1 in the postseason, 6-4 overall, including USC beating LSU and aTm (two of the SEC 2nd tier teams that are supposedly a lot better than the Big Ten 2nd tier teams).
That is a bunch of BS. There are major differences between minor league teams and college football programs. The only change in the last few years is that players are getting paid legally through NIL and the players have more freedom to choose which schools they want to play for. While you may like the version of college sports where the schools and coaches made all of the money on the backs of college football players and the college football players remained poor college students with very limited options to play elsewhere, it simply was not fair to the players.
Although NIL needs some work so that players are getting paid what their NIL rights are truly worth and are not a mere payoff by wealthy alumni, the players still play for and represent colleges which fans have strong allegiances to and the players are still required to be students. Further, the majority of players still remain with the same school for their entire college career.
The college traditions remain in place and the fans and students still feel connections to their university’s team. Fans will take pride in their school’s success regardless of which players play for their team. Do you feel less of a connection to Chop Robinson because he transferred to PSU from Maryland? I suspect that most fans do not. Alumni will continue to return to their schools to attend games, tailgate with their alumni friends, and cheer for their Alma mater regardless of whether some players are transient. The connection to your Alma Mater is very different than any connection fans may have to a minor league team.
People can call it whatever they want, doesn't change what it is.
P5 College football players are now:
Paid roughly $200,000 per year, on average, in revenue sharing (that alone is several times more than minor league basketball and baseball players are paid - so probably not fair to call college football "minor leagues", more like just another level of pro football)
They are represented by sports agents - who, among other things, arrange for payments that are often several multiples of that - upwards of seven figures per year for high demand players. That have nothing to do with "Names Image and Likeness", but rather are provided through collectives and booster money.
The players are free to negotiate and move among all football programs nationwide - so a lot more freedom than major league pros, who have to honor contract and collective bargaining restrictions.
Clearly - and WPB's post is the perfect example of "why" - it serves the interests of everyone making money from the enterprise to perpetuate, in the minds of the consumers, that what exists today is "college football", with all of the emotional ties that provides to so many who are being asked to write the checks. If that is what someone wants to call it, good for them. Who's to argue? If someone wants to call that pro football, good for them. Who's to argue?
But for better or worse it is what it is, regardless of labels, PR, and marketing efforts.
P5 College football players are now:
Paid roughly $200,000 per year, on average, in revenue sharing (that alone is several times more than minor league basketball and baseball players are paid - so probably not fair to call college football "minor leagues", more like just another level of pro football)
They are represented by sports agents - who, among other things, arrange for payments that are often several multiples of that - upwards of seven figures per year for high demand players. That have nothing to do with "Names Image and Likeness", but rather are provided through collectives and booster money.
The players are free to negotiate and move among all football programs nationwide - so a lot more freedom than major league pros, who have to honor contract and collective bargaining restrictions.
Clearly - and WPB's post is the perfect example of "why" - it serves the interests of everyone making money from the enterprise to perpetuate, in the minds of the consumers, that what exists today is "college football", with all of the emotional ties that provides to so many who are being asked to write the checks. If that is what someone wants to call it, good for them. Who's to argue? If someone wants to call that pro football, good for them. Who's to argue?
But for better or worse it is what it is, regardless of labels, PR, and marketing efforts.
Why shouldn't the players get paid? And why does it change the experience for you if they do?
As for the people being asked to write the checks, I assume you are talking about buying tickets. The price of tickets is a matter of supply and demand. If the fans are unwilling to pay the price, the price will come down.
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The Brown band's halftime show was epic, as their announcer said "Your head coach is better educated than ours."
It's funny, because years ago the argument was flipped and the Big 10 was better top to bottom and the SEC was top heavy. But I agree, right now the SEC is deeper.
Yep
In the years immediately before expansion - so around the late 2000's and into the mid 2010's - there were years were the Big Ten had as many as 8 or 9 teams (out of 11!) that were ranked at some point in the season, which is amazing (of course, as the season progressed, they knocked each other off and ended up with fewer ranked at the end - much like the current SEC)
But then came the expansion to add Nebraska, and - the really big folly - adding Rutgers and Maryland.
That move - combined with Michigan State, Wisconsin, Purdue all crashing down - turned the Big Ten back into a conference loaded with a lot of ballast.
Of course, all that ballast on the schedules now makes it a lot easier for the top teams to remain at or near the top of the rankings throughout the season. So there's that as a plus.
Did not say that they should not get paid. But there are no limits and thus the “competition” will be dictated by the very few schools that have donors to pay players the most. Sort of like what the Alabamas did under the table for years. Do you really think Nick Saban got that much better as a football coach from his Michigan State days to his days in Tuscaloosa? So kind of like the MLB. Still intersting to about 6-10 cities. But what about the other 110 schools? Unlikely to be sustainable.
Most of PSU’s games this year the ticket prices are almost free. Like a Pitt game. How much longer will that model work? Interest in such games will parallel interest on TV.
If you want to spend money to watch pro football, why not spend it on those who play it at the highest level? Just like it is done in baseball, basketball, hockey, etc. ever notice the difference in those sports?
Will D1 players even attend class anymore? Why would they? You are rapidly have lost the attachment to the team as “part of the college experience, student body, etc”
The market will sort it all out as it always does…
At the moment if you look at the ~20 teams with the longest stretch of consecutive weeks being unranked in the AP poll there are many Big 10 teams included... Rutgers, Purdue, MSU, Maryland, Northwestern if I'm remembering correctly. There was only one SEC team on the list, Auburn. I can't find the post I saw so I'm going from memory so maybe I misstated something here but the point is that a big issue with the Big 10 right now is that the bottom of the conference is very bad, and far worse than the SEC.
Back when we had the flexibility of scheduling as an independent, we sure seemed to schedule powerhouses such as Rutgers, Maryland, Temple, Cincinnati, Boston College, East Carolina, North Carolina State a lot more than we did schools like Alabama, Miami, Nebraska, Notre Dame, etc.